Questions and Answers of Forensic And Legal Psychology

Should the results of polygraph exams or other lie-detection tests be admissible in court? Would it be possible for jurors to give proper weight to such testimony if experts who support and oppose
What new guidelines were created by the Daubert trilogy, and what effects have these cases had on lawyers and judges?
What are the distinctions among the advising, evaluating, and reforming roles for psychologists interacting with the law?
Under what conditions should expert psychological testimony be considered relevant? When should it be excluded?
What obstacles prevent an easy interplay between psychology and law?
Could the legal system be improved by taking psychological methods and principles into account? How?
Are judges qualified to evaluate scientific evidence? Can you think of alternatives to using judges as gatekeepers?
How would the legal realists (e.g., Karl Llewellyn and Oliver Wendell Holmes) view the current relationship between social psychology and the law?
How should research on jury decisions in insanity cases affect the standards that courts employ?
Should mediation be required before parents can litigate custody disputes? Why or why not?
Should the definition of mental illness in SVP laws be broad, or should the laws require diagnoses of well-defined mental disorders?
Should psychological experts be permitted to offer ultimate issue testimony about defendants’ sanity? Why or why not?
How much does the subjective judgment of the polygraph examiner influence the interpretation of the polygraph test? Could you design a system to eliminate or reduce the amount of subjectivity in
Should employers be allowed to polygraph potential employees to decide whom to hire? Should employers be allowed to use the polygraph to help find out who is responsible for employee theft?
If a suspect passes a polygraph test, should interrogators be allowed to lie by telling the suspect he failed the test?
Can you tell when someone is lying to you? How? Do you think police interrogators are better than most people at detecting lies? What are the consequences if police interrogators are not especially
Is it more important to reduce false positive or false negative errors in lie detection? What are the consequences of each type of error?
Why are Miranda warnings often not as effective as they could be in helping suspects exercise their rights and act in their own best interests?
Why do jurors often convict on the basis of a false confession even if they think that the confession was probably coerced and could be false?
What would be the benefits of video recording all interrogations? What factors might increase or decrease the usefulness of video recordings in identifying false confessions?
Should police be allowed to lie to suspects during interrogations in the interest of solving crimes? Should interrogators be permitted to tell suspects that their fingerprints were found at the crime
Which changes — if any — should the legal system be required to make to reduce the incidence of false confessions? What can be done to make it easier to detect false confessions?
If we could prove that the “third degree” or outright torture was effective in extracting true confessions from criminal suspects, would you be in favor of using such techniques? That is, if such
How do information-gathering interviews differ from accusatorial interrogations? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach?
Are there ways to help jurors recognize a false confession as false?
Is DNA a better form of forensic identification evidence than fingerprints? Why or why not?
Fingerprint evidence is admissible in court. Should it be? Explain your answer.
How can we make forensic identification evidence more useful to the jurors who must evaluate it?
If you were a juror, would you have more confidence in experts’ testimony about matching fingerprints, bullets, or handwriting samples? Why?
Should forensic evidence examiners be required to have scientific training beyond a bachelor’s degree? What should their training include?
What is meant by the “scientific foundation” of trace evidence?
When is it reasonable to rely on criminal profiling to help solve a crime? When is it counterproductive?
Why might people believe that criminal profiling works despite a lack of evidence that it is effective?
Under what circumstances is it useful to know that a defendant fits the profile of others who commit the type of crime the defendant is accused of committing? For example, is it useful to know that a
What factors affect the likelihood that geographic profiling will be useful in identifying a criminal?
Is it ever reasonable to consider race when trying to predict criminal behavior? Is it ever reasonable to consider gender?
Do you believe there is sufficient research evidence to demonstrate the usefulness of criminal profiling in cases involving serial killers? Why or why not?
Should the findings of psychological autopsies be admissible in court? If so, under what conditions?
Why might police departments resist adopting the nine guidelines for conducting eyewitness identifications?
If a mistaken eyewitness identification has been made, how can it be exposed? What can be done during trial to reduce the impact of the identification?
Does the availability of mugshots and other photos on the Internet pose a threat to accurate eyewitness identification? What might be the effect of an eyewitness’s searching the Internet to locate
How can we prevent mistaken identifications from becoming wrongful convictions?
How is eyewitness identification like or unlike physical trace evidence (e.g., fingerprints, hair, DNA left at the scene of the crime)? How would you train a police officer to interview a witness
What role does confidence play in the process of eyewitness identification? What makes an eyewitness confident? How does eyewitnesses’ confidence affect police and jurors?
After viewing numerous mug shots to try to identify the perpetrator of a crime, an eyewitness says, “I’m sorry. I’m just not sure I would recognize the guy from a photo.” The police officer
Why would children claim to have been sexually abused if they were not?
Why would children who have been sexually abused deny or minimize the abuse?
What types of interview styles might lead to false claims of abuse by children?
How do the NICHD Investigative Interview Revised Protocol and other safeguards produce more accurate reports from children?
Should adult victims of abuse be permitted to testify in court via CCTV?
What factors contribute to the creation of false memories?
What criteria might we use to distinguish true from false memories of sexual abuse?
If you were a juror in a case involving a recovered memory of sexual abuse, what sort of evidence would be necessary to convince you — beyond a reasonable doubt — that the defendant is guilty?
Should CST be one standard or a flexible standard depending on the complexity of the trial? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of each approach?
What abilities should mentally ill defendants possess before being allowed to represent themselves? Should CST be sufficient to allow a defendant to waive the right to an attorney?
Should mental health professionals be allowed to offer ultimate issue testimony on defendants’ CST?
Should mental health professionals be involved in restoring a prisoner on death row to competency so the prisoner can be executed?
Should there be different standards for adolescent as compared to adult CST, and should the standards change depending on whether the defendant is tried in adult or juvenile court?
How should differences in brain development between adolescents and adults affect CST evaluations?
Should there be an absolute minimum age for trying a juvenile as an adult, or should that depend on each juvenile’s individual characteristics and the severity of the crime?
How should juveniles be protected against waiving the right to an attorney when it would be against their own best interests to do so?
Should forcible medication ever be permitted in CST cases? If so, under what conditions?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of various tests and methods for evaluating CST? Is one approach better than the others?
How would you change the selection of jury venires? Can you think of ways to improve the representativeness of the jury pool, the sample of people summoned, and the group who show up for jury service?
Should peremptory challenges be eliminated? If not, how many should be allowed per lawyer per trial?
If you were a defendant in a criminal case, which personal characteristics would you want jurors to have? Why?
If you were a judge presiding over a trial for drug possession, would you allow the prosecuting attorney to use a challenge for cause against a juror who admits to being a regular user of marijuana?
Should obese people be considered a cognizable group? How about people with incomes below the poverty line? How about wealthy people?
In pretrial questionnaires of potential jurors, how far should lawyers and consultants be permitted to go? Should they be allowed to administer personality tests? Should they be able to ask questions
Should the use of trial consultants be outlawed? Should the state provide a trial consultant for one side of the case if the other side has hired a consultant?
Should there be an insanity defense, and if so, what should be its criteria?
What should be the relative importance of moral, volitional, and cognitive factors in an insanity standard?
Which of the various insanity standards is best? Which is most just? Most efficient? Easiest to assess?
What role should neurolaw evidence play in insanity decisions?
Should courts and/or legislatures be allowed to abolish mental illness completely as a defense?
What factors make evaluating insanity so difficult?
Should expert testimony on BWS and RTS be allowed in the courtroom? If so, for what purpose(s)?
Is SAF or IPV a better means of presenting evidence than BWS? Why?
In the five-level model of expert testimony, what level is most appropriate and useful for BWS? Should it be different for RTS or PTSD?
Does expert testimony based on CIVB avoid many of the problems associated with testimony on BWS, RTS, and PTSD? Explain your answer.
If you were a juror in the trial of a woman who had murdered her batterer-husband in his sleep, what factors would be important to you in considering a verdict of not guilty by reason of self-defense?
What can we do to help jurors do their job better? Do any of your suggested reforms harm jurors’ ability to follow the law or render an impartial verdict?
Was the Zimmerman verdict wrong as a matter of justice but reasonable as a matter of law? Why?
Can you think of ways to reduce the effects of biasing information on jurors?
Should the legal system move toward 6-person juries instead of 12 person juries? Toward decisions by majority rule instead of unanimous decisions?
What is the right policy on jury nullification? Is it “don’t tell”? Should we tell every jury that jurors have the right to nullify the law to reach a just verdict? Or should we abolish jury
Should judges be permitted to use the “dynamite charge” instruction? If so, what should the judge say?
Should the legal system actively promote an evidence-drivendeliberation style? If so, how?
If you were on trial for a serious crime (we realize this would never happen to you), would you rather be tried by a jury, a judge, or a three judge panel? Why?
Can you think of a way to conduct a research project to test whether a particular jury reform is effective?
What factors should be included in the BICS?
What are the strengths and limitations of the BICS?
In custody cases like the one involving Mark Painter (see the vignette at the beginning of this chapter), how can we ensure that a judge’s decision will truly be in the child’s best interest and
In cases where equal physical custody is practical (e.g., where the parents live near each other, so the child’s schooling and friendships would not be disturbed) and where both parents desire
Do mothers necessarily deserve more consideration in custody decisions than fathers, even when the two parents are equally caring and responsible toward the child? Why or why not?
Should custody disputes between partners in a nontraditional union such as a same-sex marriage be handled by the courts in the exact same way as disputes between partners in a traditional union? Why
Should testimony about parental alienation syndrome or parent alienation symptoms be admitted into court? If so, how should such testimony affect the custody rights of the parent who caused the
In what ways can mental health practitioners best aid legal decision making in child custody cases?
Should there be a separate standard for sexual harassment depending on whether the victim is a male or a female?
What are the causes of sexual harassment?

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